


This Place Is A Shelter

by lachambre11



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, like so many of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 13:49:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3449447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lachambre11/pseuds/lachambre11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One minute he's there, solid and real and terrifying. The next, he's gone, nothing like her baby boy used to be. The colors in his cheeks turned grey, the heartbeat still. Gone. No longer alive. "I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do", the paramedics say, like her life hadn’t stopped making sense, like the world hand't stopped turning, wasn’t dimmer without him in it.</p><p> </p><p>He dies on a Thursday. She thinks she dies right along with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Place Is A Shelter

**Author's Note:**

> So I was thinking - what could I write to cheer myself up? And then this happened. It turned out to be anything but cheerful. This fic deals with the loss of a child - turn away if it's triggering in any way. Please protect yourself, and do tell me if I failed to tag something here.

Sammy dies on a Thursday.

 

She gave him a bath earlier that day, held him in her arms until he fell asleep. His hair was a wispy thing back then; a few dark strands on his head, soft to the touch. He smelled so full of life, she remembers that clearly. Life, milk, and her _._ His heartbeat was lighting fast, like it had been when he was inside her belly, the skin of her stomach stretched so taut that she could almost it see the organ pumping blood into his veins from the outside.

 

She put him in his crib, on his back, and laid down on the couch across the room.

 

Closed her eyes. Fell asleep. 

 

When she woke up, he was gone. Barely a whimper made, nothing to alarm her to his passing.

 

One minute he was there, solid and real and terrifying. The next, he was gone, looking nothing like her baby boy used to. The colors on his cheeks turned grey, the quickened heartbeat now stilled. No longer alive. _"I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do"_ , the paramedics said, like her life hadn’t stopped making sense at that exact moment, like the world hand't stopped turning on its axis, like it wasn’t dimmer without Sammy in it.

 

Her son dies on a Thursday. She feels like she dies right along with him.

 

*˜*

 

They have some sort of ceremony to mark his passing, she can’t exactly recall the details. Everything was a blur of arms and smells and words she could no longer hear, or cared to. Nothing made sense anymore. This wasn't something she had ever thought she would have to get through, a possibility she never entertained or prepared for it. It feels surreal, the whole thing - picking a casket, flowers, songs. To this day, she doesn't know how she did it.

 

All she remembers from that day was the tiny white box, the white rose petals they poured on the coffin, followed by the dirt.

 

She felt the hits every time the shovel dug into the ground. 

 

She wanted to scream, but she had forgotten how to make sounds.

 

*˜*

 

To be truthful, she remembers that he was standing right next to her on that awful day. She recalls that much, one of the few things that registered during those strange moments, feeling him this near to her. It was a foreign feeling, standing next to him. Since the day Sammy stopped breathing, he had been withdrawn, distant, always staring into the distance, always walking outside a room whenever she walked into it.

 

The thing is, the absence of him didn’t bother her at all. It was easier, in a way, not having to deal with his loss as well as hers. 

 

She didn’t know what to say to him to make it better. There was nothing that could ever be better after this.

 

*˜*

 

They pass each other around the house, ships in the night, silent ghosts living with regrets during the day.

 

She regretted not staying awake; not checking on her baby enough, not sensing that something was going wrong with him.

 

He regretted not staying at home that day, not getting up more in the nights and letting her sleep in a little more, not kissing that soft place between Sammy's chin and throat that made him giggle for one last time before he went to work.

 

They regret being with each other as well.

 

If it hadn’t been for them, they would never have known what it was like to love someone more than life itself. If it hadn’t been for each other, they could’ve gotten out of this situation without so many scars.

 

But that chance was long gone now, right along with Sammy.

 

*˜*

 

She refuses to take down the crib after the burial, but she doesn’t go into his room either.

 

Every night she stops right outside, whispers goodnight. Wonders if someone is listening. Doesn’t know whether it’s better if they are or not.

 

*˜*

 

He doesn’t sleep anymore, not really.

 

Every time he closes his eyes for a while, he thinks he hears a baby cry. _His_ baby cry. Every time, when he wakes up, he realizes that’s no longer a possibility.

 

*˜*

 

She takes long showers. Stands below the stream until her fingers are pruned, until she feels like she's turning into water. When her legs tire of standing, she sits on the floor and tries to make herself look as small as she feels. She remembers how much Sammy loved baths, how excited he was to splash around in the water, his little legs kicking out a pitter-patter of unabashed joy while Bellamy panicked about him slipping, getting water in his ear, getting soap in his eyes, whatever he chose to worry about on those days. 

 

She stands there, wishing she was underwater, long gone, forgotten. She thinks of the first time her son deliberately smiled at her was during one of his baths, while she was tickling his round tummy. There was nothing quite like seeing that toothless gap he had made for her, or feeling his hands reaching out to tug on her hair, always fascinated by their color and their length. His dark blue eyes tracking her every more, adoration written plainly for anyone to see.

 

She misses that smile. That eyes. She misses her little boy. 

 

 _I’m your momma,_ she told him after that first smile, realizing maybe for the 100 th time how overwhelming that reality felt.

 

 _Do you love your momma? Because she loves you very much_.

 

 _I love you_ , is all she can think when she takes a shower. _I love you, Sammy_. 

 

A mantra. A prayer. An apology.

 

*˜*

 

He puts Sammy’s clothes in boxes. The yellow jumper his mother’s made when they found out Clarke was pregnant, the one with five little ducklings holding hands. The navy costume Nate had gotten their baby for Halloween, the one they never got around to using it because they all fell asleep in the living room after a rough bout of hiccups.

 

He wraps the little red converse’s that Wes had gifted them. Octavia's hand knitted blanket, soft green and white. The giraffe bought by Abby, the one that used to watch over him on his crib. The mini model of the solar system that Clarke's father built her when she was a little girl, inherited by Sam. He puts away all the little mementos of the family he used to have, stacks them in boxes and put into storage.

 

He can't bring himself to take them out of the room, or throw them away, but he can't bear to see his clothes and his toys lying around either like he's still there.

 

After he packs it all up, he realizes that he doubts he will ever see those belongings again.

 

He’s pretty sure he doesn’t even want to.

 

*˜* 

 

She traces the stretch marks on her stomach, on her hips. Made by her body while carrying Sammy, the by-product of giving him life. They're a permanent testament to his existence, a daily reminder that he was there, that he was real, that she had made him from scratch, dreamt him into being and protected him in her body for nine long months.

 

There were no marks on her body to remind her that he was no longer there, but - she didn’t need it.

 

She would never forget his absence. There would never be a time when she wouldn't ache to see his face again. Most days, him being gone felt like it was the realest thing in her life, the thing that fundamentally shaped her into being who she was now. Her entire being was defined by his non-existence – the before-Clarke, and the after-Clarke.

 

Just as his birth has changed her life and how she saw herself, his death had also altered her beyond recognition.

 

*˜*

 

Sometimes he wonders how long. How long will it take until it stops being too much. Until his son's death stops coloring everything in life, his actions. Until he can look at her and not feel like his heart is beating out of his chest. How long until he can think about Sammy and struggle not to cry.

 

What’s the timeframe for this?

 

One year? Three? Ten?

 

He doesn’t think there’s so much more he can take. Breathing is hard, remembering is even harder. His boy should’ve been turning one in a couple of days. They should’ve been planning his party, maybe talking about giving him a brother or a sister. He should’ve – could have, would have. All gone. There was no child, barely a wife. No semblance of his former life.

 

There was no timeframe for this. No foreseeable future where he could stop running from the what couldn't ever be now, and start pretending that everything would be okay. No day where it wouldn’t be so hard to get up every morning and face the void where Samuel used to be. 

 

He never even got to hear him call him _d_ _addy_. There's a whole world of possibilities he will never get to experience, and it's so fucking hard, seeing life moving on for anyone but them.

 

He envies every single father who passes him down the street. He wants to shake them, warn them of the dangers of loving someone, and never realizing you could lose them. Wants to bask in their ignorance of what life can throw at you, wants desperately to forget what it feels like burying your own child.

 

But what he envies the most, what he truly wants, is to be like them again - proud. In awe of the life you helped create. Fearless. Unafraid of the morning, unafraid of a call, of the stuttered _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, he's gone, he's gone._

 

*˜*

 

Octavia tries to talk to her about seeing a professional. She wants to help. She wants Clarke to heal.

 

She’s a mother too, she says. She understands. But the thing is - 

 

Clarke knows she doesn't understand. Hopes she never gets to. 

 

“You know that terrible feeling, that blinding panic you get when Felix wanders off and gets lost in a store? That terrifying moment when you think that maybe, just maybe, you might never get to see your child again? Multiply that by ten. Expand it into a timeless terror. I live on that second, Octavia, every moment of every day. You don’t understand, because all you really remember is the relief you feel when you finally find him, the moment when he wanders back into your arms unharmed and _yours_ and you swear to never let him get out of your sight again. But I will never get to that part, I'll never feel this way again. There's no relief. There's no help. There's no healing”.

 

It's harsher than she had wanted to be, and her friend leaves in tears, but it's the truth. It also gets Octavia to stop pushing, and after that, she doesn’t try talking to her about it again.

 

*˜*

 

He visits his grave every day.

 

The rational part of him knows there’s barely anything there anymore. Some bones, maybe, a little bit of skin? He wasn’t the one with a degree on medicine, so he can’t be sure. But it’s not about Sammy being physically there or not. This is the only place where he feels closer to his son now, the only place where he can talk to him without feeling haunted.

 

He sits there, sometimes for five minutes, sometimes for an hour or more. He sits there and he apologizes, cries, tries to talk it out. See some reason. Understand why.

 

He fails every single time.

 

So he comes back every single day.

 

*˜*

 

People move on. Friends, coworkers. They all stop calling to ask her how she is, volunteering their company or their sympathy. They take one look at her face and understand that the funeral isn’t over for her yet. But they no longer wish to attend and pay their condolences. And she gets it. She does. 

 

The only people that stay are family. Raven, who comes over every Wednesday with stupid movies Clarke pretends to watch and takeout she doesn’t want to eat. Raven doesn’t prod or ask stupid questions, and she doesn’t try to force her to get over it. She just sits there, trash-talking the characters and cajoling Clarke into taking a bite of the food.

 

She doesn't prod because she knows there's no getting over what happened. She just wants Clarke to know she's there.

 

So she indulges Raven sometimes, because the weight of Sammy’s absence feels a tiny bit lighter when her friend fails to suppress a smile when she sees her eating, when she catches her captive by the action on the television. This, this Clarke can do – she can give Raven a tiny bit of happiness, a little spark of hope.

 

Hope is such a rare thing these days. She lost hers, but she doesn't have the heart to take it from someone else. 

 

-

 

Her mother makes excuses to stop by and check on things, but once she comes inside the house, she turns silent, loses her words. Clarke understands that Abby doesn't know what to say that can help,  that she thinks she might say the wrong thing if she even tries, and that her mother doesn't have the energy to fight with her anymore. Sammy was Clarke's son, but she wasn't the only person in his life. In those moments, she remembers that a whole group of people lost him too.

 

It makes her feel less alone.

 

It makes her hate herself, that small parcel of relief that this realization brings.

 

- 

 

Aurora sends frozen dishes of them (Bellamy) to eat, stops by twice a week to check on the lilacs, she claims, when she’s actually checking on Clarke. Her mother-in-law weeds out the garden while she takes refuge in the shade and sips iced tea. Aurora talks up a storm about her neighbors or her job of whatever else is going on in her life, and acts like she doesn’t know Clarke isn’t really listening to her babble.

 

When it's over and she can no longer pretend to do anything on the garden, she kisses her on the cheek before leaving. Aurora always smells sweet, of motherhood and comfort, and Clarke can't deal with that, isn't ready to, so she turns her head away and pretends those hugs don't bring tears to her eyes.

 

*˜*

 

It all comes to a head, eventually.

 

Ten months pass, and Sammy's room still looks basically the same. The white, hand-carved crib collecting dust in the corner. His mobile, with the members of the Fellowship of the Ring, a gift from Monty and Jasper, swaying ever-gently with the wind. The mural Lincoln painted, the one that Clarke wasn’t allowed to see until it was finished.

 

It all looked the same.

 

But to Bellamy, it was nothing but a painful reminder that he wanted it gone. He couldn’t stare at it anymore, searching for answers that wouldn’t come. Missing a baby that wasn’t there.

 

-

She walked into the scene after work, when he was finishing taking apart the dresser, the other half of the room already packed and stacked neatly into the corner. The dread on her face only rivaled the one setting in his stomach when she startled him, but that quickly turned into anger when she went ashen and shook her head, saying –

  
“No, Bellamy. No, no, no, no, no".

 

“Why the hell not?” he questioned, and was taken aback when her eyes sparkled for the first time in months, in a lifetime. There was anger there, for the first time. Maybe she was still alive underneath it all. He wouldn’t know – it wasn’t like she showed it anymore. It's not like he looked for her inside the new Clarke either.

 

“Because – because I don’t want you to. I have a say in this. He’s my son and this is his room. It should stay the same”.

 

“He’s mine – he _was_ mine as well. But he’s gone, Clarke. He’s not coming back”, and it felt like a punch in the gut, saying those words aloud for the first time. Realizing all over again that this was true. Sammy was never coming back home again. He would never get to grow up, to turn into a boy, and later into a man. This new awareness gutted him, and he was tired of finding new hurts, new pains. “How do you think I feel, coming home every night to a cemetery? To walk past the place where my son died and seeing it still look the same, like _nothing_  hadchanged, when everything did!”

 

Her eyes were welling up, and he realized with a start that he was already crying. He hadn't noticed when it started. 

 

“It’s too soon. I can’t – I can’t, Bellamy. _Please._ Don’t take him from me”.

 

“He’s not _here!” ._ There’s nothing but sorrow and two broken people inside this room. “He’s not here, and he’s not at his grave either. You wanna know how I know that, Clarke? Because I visit it every day. I go there every day, and I talk to him. But I don't feel him there. You wouldn’t know that, would you? You’ve never been there after we put him in the ground”.

 

“I couldn't - you _know_ why I couldn't. So just stop talking, okay? Stop talking like I don’t care about him. Like I don’t _miss_ him. I know he’s gone, Bellamy, I’m not fucking delusional. I’m not on denial. But I’m not ready to lose whatever part of him I can still cling to. So, if that means keeping his room as it was, then we’re doing that. Do you hear me? Put it all back!”

 

Her face was red, stained with tears, and he could barely see straight because of his. 

 

“No. No, Clarke. I can’t live like this, not anymore. This isn’t living at all. We barely see or talk to each other. You can hardly look in me the eye even right now. Sammy died, and it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, but he’s not the only thing missing from my life. You’re barely here too. Even when you’re around, I’m missing you”.

 

“I’m here every day. I’m the one who gets to live with the silence in this house. I’m the one who gets to stay alive even though I wish I were dead. _I wish I was dead,_ Bellamy. There’s no place to go where I get to forget that Sammy existed, and there’s no place where I can go when I don’t feel like a vital part of me is missing. Like someone borrowed my heart and forgot to gave it back. So tell me – how am I supposed to be here, with you, when I all I want it to be gone so that I get to be with him?”

 

She’s shaking now, they both are, and this is the longest conversation they had since they planned their son’s funeral on the hazy days after the incident. He wants to scream, tear his hair out, punch a wall until his hand breaks. Wants to hold her, soothe her and himself, but thinks she wouldn’t let him. Not here. Not now. Maybe ever again.

 

He takes a deep breath, tries to think straight. Fails. Tries again. 

 

“You’re not alone in this. You’re not the only one who wonders what’s the point in going through the motions, of trying to act normal, when you’re so past normal that that you can’t even see it in the rearview mirror. Do you think _I_ want to stay alive when my son is dead? When I see a boy playing on the street and my heart stops because it should've been Sam out there? When I come home and see my wife is sitting in the dark, lost in her own head?”

 

“I – I don’t think I can be your wife anymore. I don’t think I can even be anything right now”.

 

They stay silent for a while, the words hanging heavy between them. A crossroads. Throw it all away. Pretend it never happened. Is that possible?

 

He doesn't think it is.

 

“It’s that what you want? What you really, truly want? If it is, I’ll leave you alone, Clarke”, and there’s a knot in his throat that can’t seem to come undone. “But I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to walk away from you, and I don’t want to see your suffer through this alone. Even if you still keep me at arm’s length. Even if I’ve been a shitty husband after… after he died. I will still want you around even when I don’t want anyone else. Even when I look at you and see his eyes, his chin. Even when it hurts. I love him. But I still love you too”.

 

“Even when you blame me for his death?”

 

“I never blamed you for that. _Never_ ”.

 

“Why not? He died on _my_ watch. He died when I was asleep in the same room, not even thirty steps away from him. He died, and I didn’t do a damn thing. I never even realized it was happening until it was too late. You get to blame me. _I_ blame  _me._ I thought you already did”.

 

“I – I don’t. I really don't. The doctors said it was a fatality. That SIDS could happen to any baby, and that you had done everything right. Everything we could've done to prevent it”.

 

“Did you know I was fuzzy that day? He'd had colic all night, do you remember? I barely slept, and I was so relieved when he stopped crying and settled down in his crib that all I could think about was catching up on sleep. I didn’t – I don’t even remember if I put down the baby monitor next to me or left somewhere else”, she confessed, her voice faltering on the last words. Like this was the greatest sin she had ever committed. 

 

He was speechless. She had been carrying this around for ten months, all by herself. The guilt must’ve been eating her alive, and he never, not even once, stopped to really look at her and realize what was happening. He never made her feel like she could talk to him about it. If he could go back, he would’ve punched himself in the face. He wanted to it now, actually.

 

“Clarke… If you did, or if you didn’t, I don’t think it would’ve made a difference”, and he realizes, as he says those words, that they are true. “You were right there, and you’ve always been a light sleeper. If it was possible, you would've heard something. Nobody could’ve seen this coming”.

 

“I should’ve seen it coming. I was his _mother_ ”.

 

“But you’re not God”.

 

“Don’t bring him into this. If he existed, then this wouldn’t have happened”.

 

“It was an accident”, and it was. There was something completely infuriating and paralyzing about that. How many parents had gone though this? How many would? Why bother bringing a life into this world if you had no idea when or how you would lose it? Parents aren't supposed to worry about that. 

 

He approached her with caution, step by step. She started crying even harder, but didn’t shied away, let him hold her hand, take her in his arms. Let herself go for a while.

 

He has no idea how long they stayed there in Sammy’s room, crying, together for the first time in almost a year. When the tears ran out, and she fell asleep on his chest, it felt a little less dark, this brand new world they were living in it. He put her to bed, tried to fall asleep as well. Managed a couple of hours, then went back into the nursery and reassembled the room.

 

She would be ready, eventually, to say goodbye. He would too. She had asked this of him, and he would give it to her. His son isn’t there anymore, but his mother is.

 

She's one of the real things he has left in his life. It's time to stop hiding and start fighting. For them. For Sammy's memory. 

 

He doesn’t have it in him to deny her what she wants, never had, and couldn’t bring himself to do it now. They would never be the couple they were back then, not after what happened, but he could still do this one thing to bring her comfort, even if it hurt him a little, still seeing this room without Sammy being there.

 

But maybe, maybe they could turn this place into something else. Not a mark of his absence, but a shelter to the love they have for him. A place where they could come to mourn, to remember, to figure out how to carry on without him. A place that once held something, someone, beautiful.

 

*˜*

 

She cried once she woke up, and saw it all there.

 

It was like, once she started, she couldn’t stop. She cried when she remembered the way he grabbed his toes and try to put them in his mouth. She cried when she came across the picture of the day she gave birth to him, a selfie of her and Bellamy on the way to the hospital, looking like a pair of dorks with huge smiles on their faces.

 

She cried when she helped Aurora tumble out the weeds, and cried when the woman gave her a hug, wiped her tears even when they wouldn’t stop falling. Cried when she called Octavia to apologize and heard there was nothing to forgive. Cried when Raven brought a romantic comedy and she saw Reese Witherspoon chasing after her man in the rain, declaring her love amongst lighting. She cried and she cried until she felt a little bit better when she stopped.

 

She cried with Bellamy, in front of Bellamy, and stopped hiding from him. He stopped hiding from her. They had seen the worst of each other, and stayed. 

 

Her tears felt like they were never ending, but maybe that was okay. Because it started to feel like they would eventually fade into something else, something bigger. Like they might become a part of her, just as loving and losing Sammy did.

 

It begins to feel like she will eventually start to smile again, sometimes. Like she can try to catch her breath, take day by day, and stop being floored by the loss of her child. Like she can maybe start living with it. Or try to, at least.

 

And maybe, just maybe, like she might start to feel alive instead of just existing.

 

*˜*

 

He couldn’t, wouldn’t erase his boy from his memory.

 

But maybe, someday, they would be able to move past it and start something new, start to hope. Start wanting to live instead of struggling to survive.

 

Someday.

 

Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> i. am. trash. forgive me.
> 
> please read/review :)


End file.
